“Do you want to know how he is?”

“No, Agnes, I don’t.”

“I didn’t think so, but I had to ask. This is a beautiful house, Lola. I imagine Cady is very happy here. Will she be home soon?”

“Sometime this evening, I’m sure. Come along, let’s get you situated. Are you hungry?”

“Lola, I’ve been hungry all my life. I think I’d like some meat. I haven’t had meat in years. But not now, later, when it’s time for supper will be fine. I’m good at waiting and being patient. I think my whole life was geared up to this moment.”

Lola felt tears burning her eyes, but she blinked them away.

Lola reached out and took Agnes’s arm. “Tell me this isn’t a trial run or something like that. Tell me you’re here to stay. I’m not going to be here forever, and I want to know Cady has someone she can count on. Wait till you see how she’s blossomed. I want your word, Agnes, that you won’t go back to Asa.”

“I’m here to stay, Lola, as long as you and Cady will have me. I also need to think about getting a divorce. I want to do that as soon as possible.”

Lola leaned over, and whispered in Agnes’s ear, “You know what we have to do, don’t you, Agnes?”

“Yes. I’m ready and I’m prepared. I never thought it would come to this. Am I going to go to hell, Lola?”

“Well if you are, you are certainly going to have a lot of company.”

Cady rolled over onto her stomach and propped her elbows on the fuzzy, yellow blanket. “This has been a really nice day, Boomer. Do you realize that after you put up the zip line, we’ve done nothing but talk for”—she looked down at her wrist—“almost six hours.”

Boomer rolled over, and said, “Time flies when you’re having fun. Look, there’s a duck in the pond.”

Cady laughed. “Just one? Oh, look, there’s his mate. I bet you didn’t know ducks are monogamous.”

“I knew that.” Boomer laughed. “You aren’t going to tell your grandmother we ditched that gourmet picnic in favor of Manny’s Take-Out Deli, are you?”

“Absolutely not.” She pointed to the spot on the far side of the pond where they’d dumped Anthony’s gourmet creations in favor of greasy, finger-lickin’ fried chicken, pickled eggs, big fat deli pickles, and shiny, crunchy apples. “See, the squirrels and birds have devoured most of it. I’ll simply say it was all finished. It won’t be necessary to say by whom.”

Boomer leaned over on his side, propping himself up on his elbow. He looked up, then at the rustling in the trees. “The temperature is dropping. I think it’s going to rain. When you can see the underside of the leaves, that means rain. My mom told me that when I was a kid and wanted to go somewhere when she thought it was going to rain. You’re shivering. Stay here, I have an old jacket in my car.”